There is nothing more frustrating than adult acne. Shouldn't there be a law against getting chin acne in your 30s? For one woman, it wasn't hormones or genetics that was causing her terrible acne — it was her husband, who couldn't understand why she was blending her face with their bathroom sponge. Until he did. He really, really did.
To be fair, his wife has always had skin issues.
As he explained in a post on Today I F—ed Up, his wife's acne has always been a sore point.
"She has seen countless dermatologists and other professionals trying to get rid of it to no avail," he explained.
The couple has a sponge rack in their bathroom.
"It's where a square cleaning sponge is kept and it's used to quickly clean the counters and mirrors if needed," he continued. "My wife got it for us, she is so awesome coming up with these things."
Recently, his wife bought a new cleaning sponge.
But this one was in a nifty new shape.
"It was a super weird egg shaped sponge," he wrote. "I found this eggsponge hilarious and asked my wife why she would get such a weird shaped sponge and not just a normal square one."
To which, she told him "it would be easier to use than the old one to put makeup on."
That's strange. Why would his wife use their bathroom sponge to put her makeup on?
"Did you know that people who wear makeup use a sponge to spread the makeup on their face?" he asked. "Well I didn't."
But now he does, thanks to his very patient wife who explained what a makeup sponge is.
That led the husband to a terrible realization:
He'd been using his wife's makeup sponge to clean their bathroom.
"We believe that that's the reason for her recurring acne," he added. "The wife is not happy and I feel horrible."
He was still confused, however.
Why in the world would she keep her makeup sponge on a drying rack?
"She didn't want any bacteria growing on the moist sponge which could happen if she left it in her [makeup] bag," he wrote.
That would have made perfect sense — if her husband hadn't gunked it up by using it to clean their sink!
To make it up to her, he bought her several brand-new sponges.
But not the "square ones."
"I hope she can forgive my dumb— soon," he added.
Most people couldn't stop laughing at the mix-up.
"Now tell her what you have been cleaning with her toothbrush…" one person joked.
"Dude, after this blows over, you need to walk in when she's brushing her teeth and make the same confused expression and ask if she uses that to brush her teeth with," someone else suggested.
A third person shared their own story of a bathroom mix-up:
"I'm crying. When I was a kid I cleaned my turtle's shell.
Mom: (days later) How did you clean it?
Me: I used the old scungy toothbrush in the bathroom.
Mom: What scungy toothbrush?
Me: The one with the frayed bristles.
Dad: [begins retching]"
Other people thought this whole story sounded bizarre.
"I just … I just don’t understand how a cleaning sponge and a makeup sponge can be mistaken for one another?" one person asked. "One is much smaller and dense than the other? One would make cleaning very difficult because it physically covers a really small surface area? Feel like this is beyond a simple mistake."
"Surely she would notice it doesn't only smell of makeup?" someone else wondered.
"How can you be married for years and never see your wife putting on her make up? I didn't know about sponges before I got married, either… But I sure as h— do now," someone else chimed in.
As the husband explained in an update to his post, there were a few reasons why he sincerely missed that he wasn't using a cleaning sponge.
"My wife likes her privacy while using the bathroom when she gets ready in the morning. She doesn't use makeup that often because apparently that's bad for her face," he wrote. "So I've never really seen her using her makeup sponge or then I've been too absentminded to notice."
In addition, "The makeup sponge I had mistaken as a cleaning sponge was a square one," he explained. "They come in sheets and you just take one square piece out of it, honestly just like you would take out a cleaning sponge."
When it comes down to it, however: "I guess I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed," he admitted.
